The Road Development Authority (RDA) said it has been unable to import road-construction tar since February because of the Middle East conflict, and has begun diplomatic-level talks with five countries to secure alternative supply.
Sri Lanka sources 100% of its road-construction tar from Dubai, and the monthly requirement is 20,000 metric tons. The RDA said diplomatic discussions are now under way with Malaysia, Thailand, India, Oman and Russia, but the main difficulty has been that products from those countries do not meet Sri Lanka’s technical standards and specifications.
“Tar of such quality is scarce in other countries,” the Authority said in remarks reported by NewsFirst. As soon as the discussions are successful, it added, immediate steps will be taken to import tar through local suppliers.
The supply gap adds a sixth month of disruption to road-construction planning and procurement timelines. The RDA’s tar shortage now sits alongside the 127-hour El Niño hydropower shortfall and sustained tourism declines as a measurable Iran-war passthrough into Sri Lanka’s domestic supply chain.
The disruption helps explain the first sub-50 reading on the construction Purchasing Managers’ Index in April, when the index fell to 45.7 from 70.3 in February. New orders and purchases both collapsed, with industry citing petrochemical input shortages and the Middle East conflict as the principal drags. Bitumen, the heaviest end-product of refining, is among the inputs Sri Lankan refiners and importers have struggled to source as Gulf petrochemical capacity has been pulled offline by missile and drone attacks.
Sri Lanka’s road-resurfacing programme runs largely on Public Investment funding and donor-backed projects, both of which are affected by procurement delays when bitumen supplies are interrupted.
